For me however, I had seen this roulette wheel before and with ten days ahead the last place I needed to drop my guard was on the plane over. Vegas will always eat you up eventually, all you can do is try and postpone it.
With an action-packed schedule, I wanted my time in Vegas seeing the Raiders to just be a part of the trip rather than the purpose. To that end, I made my week packed with “side activities” such as the Las Vegas Grand Prix, U2’s spectacular immersive show at the sphere and lunch with Gordon Ramsay!
10 days in Vegas is like sensory overload. The noise, the lights, the people, the smells and the sounds all come at you constantly. When you face it head-on it's like facing into a fire. Seems mad to say, but going to some NFL games was actually somewhat of a sensory reprieve!
Out of the two games the Chargers in SoFi stadium was definitely the best. That’s the most incredible stadium I’ve been to and I’ve been to a few. The gigantic TV that blasts out the game in the centre of the stadium is like an Imax experience within the game. The pictures and in particular the sound from it, is spellbinding. I loved it. I got a great deal on the ticket (mind you it was the guts of $500) but for a seat on the 50 yard line halfway up and your own separate lounge with complimentary everything, it wasn’t half bad. They retail at about 3x that usually. It was actually a pretty full stadium so it wasn’t like I was the only one there. Waiting until the day of the game to buy the ticket really paid off.
The Raiders game could have been better if I was sat somewhere else. I had to leave the game in the third quarter as the crowd around me was doing my head in. The Broncos fans were prickly and confrontational. The fan sat next to me didn’t know whether to look at the game, fix her hair, go on her phone, look behind her, or a contestant combination of all four over and over again and just made sitting next to her painfully annoying. She literally couldn’t sit still and then to make matters worse would scream at the top of her lungs suddenly every now and again, a lot of the time without any real reason to. My point is not to whine about her but to explain how the fans we are sat next to can have such a catastrophic influence on how we enjoy the game that a bad one can actually go a considerable way to ruining it. I found the crowd as a whole that day pretty childish and irritating. I ended up sitting at the bar for most of the second half to get away from it which is a very poor reflection on what should be an enjoyable and fun game-day experience.
Vegas can be like that. Very loud. Very in your face. People screaming songs into microphones who can’t sing while simultaneously demanding money for it at the same time. That’s Vegas and that was very much my Raiders in Vegas experience. At one point a guy incensed with a Raiders jersey on started yelling at the crowd how they should act on specific downs. Ironic coming from a guy who supports a team that wasn’t even in this city four years ago. Tourist town brings tourist fans. Lambasting them for how they enjoy themselves is not for anyone to dictate. I felt a dislike for both teams leaving the game.
Overall, I had an incredible time in Las Vegas. It’s the most amazing place on earth for entertainment and left having thoroughly enjoyed the highs and lifetime memories that it brought. It’s a roller coaster of a city. I can see why an NFL team had to be moved there. In many ways, there’s no city in America like it.
I wasn’t expecting Sofi to be as comprehensively better than Allegiant as it was but I really don’t think there was any comparison. Allegiant is a fantastic stadium but SoFi is just better. I can’t imagine there is a better stadium on earth. The fan experience was far better too. They were able to jibe on each other in a much more enjoyable way than the game the previous day. It was more banter, less fight-picking. Made for a much more comfortable atmosphere.
Ultimately, the Chargers and the Raiders are two teams new to their neighbourhoods and it shows. Yes they have fans but how pure can they be when their team’s in a brand new city? The positive aspect is I can’t see how either of them will ever move again. For both, this is their forever-homes. If I ever get back to either in years to come, I’ll be there to see a much more settled hometown crowd. It’s the least both these two teams deserve with what they’ve gone through.
So that's it for this trip. Twenty teams down, twelve to go. It's taken a lot longer than I thought, but that doesn't bother me. The fact I've gotten this far makes me very proud. I never wanted to rush it, but I always wanted to do it and I'm excited I still have plenty of trips to go.
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